Join hundreds of other business owners, leaders, entrepreneurs, ambitious professionals, solopreneurs, and purpose-driven high achievers—people with big callings and even bigger calendars—who are ready to start living and leading from a place of internal rest rather than busyness, burnout, and overwhelm.
Why your desk is where good ideas go to die
Published 7 days ago • 1 min read
Summer Series | A Rhythm Worth Returning To |This was one of my most-read issues from the past season. Here it is again.
When did you last make a genuinely good decision sitting at your desk?
I once coached an executive whose definition of productivity was “sitting for ten hours a day at my desk,” until he caught himself mid-sentence. This is one of my most-read issues of the last season, and here’s why: because it names the gap between logging hours and making the calls that actually move your company or team forward. If your calendar protects your meetings but not your thinking, the cost shows up in your decisions before it ever shows up in the numbers.
Sitting at your desk for ten hours a day does not make you productive.
It is an idea graveyard, not an idea factory, and I have the coaching conversations to prove it.
In 1879, Friedrich Nietzsche left his university post after years of migraines, spent his summers walking the Swiss Alps for up to eight hours a day, and filled six notebooks with the work that made him famous. He believed only thoughts born from walking were worth trusting.
That happened to me just this week. I was taking my daily walk and had an idea for a piece I want to write.
Jon and I hiking in the White Mountains, Lonesome Lake
Your team, your clients aren’t paying for the hours you log. They are paying for the two or three hours a day when your thinking is actually worth something, and this issue breaks down how to find those hours and build your week around them.
Where are you spending your best hours on your worst work?
P.S. If you have never audited where your own best decisions actually come from, the REST Assessment takes five minutes and might tell you something you already suspect.
Join hundreds of other business owners, leaders, entrepreneurs, ambitious professionals, solopreneurs, and purpose-driven high achievers—people with big callings and even bigger calendars—who are ready to start living and leading from a place of internal rest rather than busyness, burnout, and overwhelm.